My head hit the floor, cushioned slightly by the carpet. Vision blurred and ears ringing, I could barely perceive the terror unfolding around me. Bodies started dropping, but none were of the faces I knew…. The floor remained clean as there was no difference between the color of the carpet and the blood that was let out. But that is when I saw them
“Let…her….go” My words were barely audible and were as inconsequential as my efforts of reaching out to them, as I was forced to watch the sight of a goon restraining my sister by pulling her up by her hair.
A moment of relief followed as her assailant was shot, freeing her from his clutches. But it all disappeared as I saw a spray of blood and flesh shot through Sayuri’s torso, and as she slowly fell to the ground. At that moment, the room went into a silence, occasionally broken by groans of pain followed by kill shots
“….No” My body refused to obey as I mustered all my strength to save my friend and family. A bullet tore through my knee, and a boot pinned my head to the floor.
I was forced to watch as she tried to crawl away…trying to fight for life, and for ours. But the sound of those boots ruffling broke through the silence. A shotgun appeared in my line of sight, and which I still was none the wiser, but then the man himself appeared in my sight, towering over our dying leader
“Isacc….no…” He stepped closer to Sayuri, and then put a shell through her leg. From how it splattered, it was definitely a buckshot. I had a front row seat to the whole thing….. how he stepped on her exposed leg, causing her to scream in agony…
He did the same to her arm, then her shoulder…… He deliberately kept her alive, taking pleasure in her screams as he couldn’t hide the wide smirk on his blood splattered face. And when he faced me, I thought his face was frozen that way.
.
.
.
.
I suddenly jolted back up to life, looked around as I realized that I had dozed off for a moment. The exhaustion of that last match lingered, but I felt like I couldn’t fall asleep anymore even if I tried to.
The crimson glow above me had dimmed down, slowly transitioning into its nightly azure. I didn’t know how to sort out all my feelings right now. Was it really right for me to forge new bonds before I avenged my old ones? Or was it right for me to try and slow down at all?
Although I try so hard to carve my own path, I feel like I’m walking down a pitch black tunnel without even a ray of light to guide me.
I glanced to my left on the bench and something caught onto my peripheral vision. And as I did a double take, an unexpected presence caught me by surprise
“Ahh!” I couldn’t help but let out a shriek….how the hell does this woman sneak into my vicinity without me even noticing slightly
“You okay, Yuu-chan?”
“Oh, Goddamnit…. Can you not creep up on me like that, Haru?”
She jumped over the bench and sat beside me “You were gone for so long, I thought I’d come find you. Hayato-kun started drowning his sorrows about failing to impress your taste buds with his…gastronomic expertise as he calls it…… Next thing you know, Tatsuo-kun joined in as well and now…we might have a repeat of a couple of days ago”
I stood silent but Haru kept on going, with her voice full of energy and cheer
“Ah, not to worry…. I made sure to put some barbed wire on that flagpole. Like to see how those two drunks can get up now”
Eventhough I didn’t understand her, I couldn’t help but let out a slight grin.
“Haru-san…Why did…”
“IT’S HA-RU FOR YOU” she was in my face in a split second…what a bother
“Alright, I get it, I get it… I forgot” And she backed down in the next moment
“Why did you choose to trust me, Haru?”
“You told me it’s because you had a knack for reading people’s true intentions. If that was true, you wouldn’t even hesitate to kick me out” I looked her in the eyes “You were right about most of what you said that day, but if I know anything about people, they always have another side to them… How can you take a risk like that?”
“Ahhh….” Haru laid back on the bench, fixing her eyes to the sky “It’s because you looked like you were all on your own”
“What?”
Haru straightened her back and took an item out of her inventory
“A chess piece?” The transparent piece dazzled under the blue glow of the sphere in the sky
“A rook to be exact, a sign of defense.…. I don’t think you remember but I told you a bit about my sister after our raid. She’s the complete opposite of me, runs headfirst into everything…. Gets herself hurt even in times she should not be. Everytime we played, chess used to be the game she hated the most. Because it’s the only place where she can’t use brute force to get her way.”
She held the piece up to the sky, making it dazzle even more. “No matter what she does, she always tries to do things alone….she had a knack for pushing people away from her, including our parents.”
She put it back on her hand and kept her eyes on it “Everytime she came home bruised, battered and even when she got bedridden, she’d grab my hand and say “Don’t leave me, please”…. Everytime she came back home after a fight, I’d take care of her…. And everytime trouble found me, she’d dive headfirst into it just to save me”
She paused for a second “That’s why when we found out we are stuck here, she gave me this glass rook. To tell me that nothing had changed, that she’d protect me just like I do to her”
She now looked at me “When I was pulling shrapnel out of you after Tatsuo-kun pulled you out of the water, you were afraid of something eventhough you were passed out. Almost thought you break my hand”
And then she looked forward “After I got separated from my sister, I ran…. I ran until I ended up in Helios. I was scared, didn’t know where to go, and was defenseless. Until Hayato-kun and Tatsuo-kun saved me the same way they did you….. Guess I can say I know how it feels to brave all this without someone to give you a hand”
A brief pause followed between us, which allowed me to process all she said
“We’ll find her” I reassured her
“I hope we do… She’s too stubborn to let this place be the end of her anyways.”
(That makes a whole lot more sense… She might greet everyone with an overwhelming amount of cheer, but I guess she does that to forget her own personal demons in the process)
“Just so you know, I never meant to try to push you guys away. You might think I’m weird… Unable to enjoy food, not having interests like everyone else… Most people I knew only treated me like a freak of nature….Kinda made me afraid of people”
Haru faced my way and looked at me “Even now I wanted to try and enjoy myself but…. ever since I was 10, any food I got was laced with trace amounts of wolfsbane…it was a coin toss whether I was going to be in excruciating pain or throw everything up with blood. If I didn’t eat it, my old man starved me” I looked at her “Until I had no other choice”
“That couldn’t have been legal” Haru commented
“That’s because it isn’t…. That got out, I’d been sent to an orphanage and forced to be disowned by my family…hitting the whole name with a maximum rating on the index. Too bad my old man had enough influence to keep everything he’s done to me under the table.”
“Yuu-chan” Of course she would sound concerned…who wouldn’t
“I was forced to learn how to fight, how to shoot…..how to control my emotions….and how to not get attached to others. I was allowed to go to school to learn control…. To blend in with the others, as he’d put it. Everyone else stayed away from the kid who came in everyday broken, cut and bruised except for one… She was caring, kind and was full of energy”
The memory of it made me pause for a second, as my breath shuddered “I told her, everything I’m put through day in day out. She was there to lend me an ear and a shoulder everytime I wanted to cry my eyes out…..She knew she couldn’t do anything to help me and all she could do is offer me some words of comfort….. Few weeks later, my old man brings me out to an abandoned building….to train me to torture someone. They had a bag over their head and after almost half a day of agony, they died….”
I struggled to get the next few words out “It was only when I took the bag off, I realized it was her. My own father, made me murder the only person I could confide in”
“My god” Haru had her hand to her mouth, but it wasn’t enough to hide her shock
“Turns out he recorded the whole thing, had it edited in a way that showed that I killed her on my own volition… and made the whole school watch it. Everyone was against me from that point onwards, calling me a cold blooded murderer…. A killer who can’t be judged because she comes from a big name family”
I straightened my back and leaned on the bench “Took me years to overcome that fear, my sister introduced me to her friend who was way more perceptive than anyone I’ve met. And it’s only with them and a couple of others I got trapped in this place”
“The people you are after, they killed them?”
“Yes and no… My group are people I’m after. Sayuri, the friend I just told you about, was who lead the New World Order when it started. She was headstrong, and wanted to collaborate with everyone else to beat this game together, someone else had another idea. He stabbed us in the back, killed her in cold blood, and led to my sister to take her own life”
I bent down again, putting my hands together “I don’t know, if it’s right for me to let you guys be around me, when everyone that has known me had a miserable fate awaiting them. I just…don’t want anyone else to suffer because of me.”
A second of silence followed, with only the slight breeze of the night sweeping past my ear
“This is the first time you've told anyone this ever since, isn’t it?”
I glimpsed at her and slightly nodded “Yeah”
“It’s okay to be afraid, Yu-chan. It shows you have something valuable in your life, something you don’t want to lose. You might be afraid of your past, but no amount of pondering can ever change that… Chin up, eyes forward, one foot in front of the other. That’s how you keep going”
She put her hands on mine and leaned in towards me “We may never know if we’d see the real world again, we may not know if our group will always stay together…. We may not know who of us will die and when…. But all we know is we are all friends for now and that we got each other’s backs…. Might as well try to enjoy it while it lasts”
(She really knows what to say no matter what, huh)
Haru raised her arms up and stretched out wide “Well… As much as I'd love to sit here for a bit longer, might as well be prepared to drag those two drunks home…So….” Haru stretched out her hand to me “You coming?”
I involuntarily chuckled “I’ll catch up….Go ahead without me for a bit”
“Okie… See you in a…”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Haru” My interruption made her turn around from her jolly march “Thank you…. I needed that”
Her reply started with a smile “Any time, that’s what friends are for”
I took another few moments to collect myself, long enough for Haru to disappear out of my sight. I pushed myself off the bench and onto my feet
<
The voice felt like it played inside my head, there was no direction to it…no distortion… However in my eyes, I saw her staring at me from the distance
<
I closed my eyes and emptied my mind, took a deep breath and opened my eyes….and she was gone.
“They won’t get away….not this time”
The rest of the day went exactly how we expected it to. Tatsuo and Hayato were out drunk, and it was left to me and Haru to get both the kids and the passed-out babies back to the house.
….Thankfully, they didn’t throw up on the way..
It was a short trek to the house with those two on our backs and it was a safe one due to the night rules being in effect. So all we had to pass was less than a dozen curious patrol guards and a razor-wire wrapped flagpole before we put those two to bed in their rooms. Didn’t take long after that for us to turn in for the night as well.
And a new day arrived, with a new challenge ahead of us
“Ladies and Tatsuo… We’ve all fought very hard, and it’s time to take our first step towards freedom. And for that, we need to be ready for anything that this new mode throws at us”
Hayato kept pacing left and right as he spoke “Battle Royale works of rules different to what we are accustomed to. We won’t have the liberty of our own Cyber-Gear until mid-game, we won’t have our personal shields so any weapon can kill us if we are not careful.”
Hayato stopped and turned towards us “Now then, last week, Cadet Mano here got a crash course on the fundamentals of Battle Royale, let’s see how much of it you remember”
(So I am a Cadet now?)
“Cadet Mano, the three types of armor plates from weakest to strongest…go”
“Kevlar, Ceramic, Steel…. Selection depends on playstyle if I remember right”
“Extra points awarded, well done Sergeant”
(At least stick to script you’ve made up)
“Question Two….Give me a brief of this” He shows me a collar
“Cranial Deflection…uhh” drawing a blank I started looking around
“Bzzzt….You are dead, Cadet Mano”
(This battalion has one of the worst rank systems ever)
“Cranial Deflection Module ... .CDM for short or to be used on comms. Protects your head depending on what kind of armor chip you manage to scavenge” He puts in a chip to show a dome appearing for a fraction of a second before it goes invisible
“Remember that it also visually indicates when your CDM is compromised” he pulls the chip out to demonstrate…. “Your head will be vulnerable to being blown off after that so always keep your head armor up”
“Not that you will be losing anything even if you do lose your head” I had a feeling Tatsuo was waiting for a chance to get at him
Hayato lifted his finger to remark back, but surprisingly restrained himself shown by a brief silence “I’m going to circle back to that later”
He cleared his throat and continued “Anyways, Battle Royale is all about adapting to changing situations. The map we’ll be playing on, it’s big…. Big enough to hold up to a hundred squads of four, and have them spaced enough to not devolve into a complete bloodbath at the start…..Meaning if we get separated when we drop, it’s most likely certain death for whoever got separated…That’s why before we go in, we decide where we land and work our way from there until the end.
Haru raised her hand from beside me and that got Hayato’s attention immediately
“Go ahead, Corporal Nishiyama”
(Again with that ranking system)
“It’s Haru-san for you”
“Yeah but it doesn’t work that….”
“IT”S HA-RU SA-AN FOR YOU” her scary aura leaked even to where I stood, effectively making me all of us feel a chill down our spines
“Okay…Haru-san…” Hayato backed down like an innocent hare…
(So much for the bootcamp roleplay)
“You said that we won’t have our gear till mid game, do we get our gear at a specific point of the game or do we have to do something to get it?”
“Excellent question, Corporal Nishieeek… Haru-san” I didn’t have to look to know she just gave him a colossal stink eye
“I wish I could show it to you, but it doesn’t appear to be on the spawn table here….But imagine a gray glowing donut divided into three pieces. These pieces are called Ciphers. Collecting all three unlocks your weapons and shields. But here’s the catch: holding two Ciphers sends a beacon, revealing your location to everyone.”
“Then the whole map knows where you are, which is literally a death sentence” Tatsuo completed Hayato’s sentence
“Extra points to Sandbag Kanamori”
Didn’t take even a second for them to be locking hands and at each other’s throats “Well this sandbag is about to crush you flat, Bitchkawa”
“How about you lose some of that weight so you would actually stand a chance of catching me first?”
(Aaaand what happened to the whole lesson about BR again?)
I couldn’t help but let out a sigh, but as I opened my eyes again the guys were unnaturally quiet.
Scary Haru was back and had her hands on each other's shoulders….her smile betrayed her aggressive tone of voice and she had everyone close to her frozen stiff ... .including me.
“Now, boys…. I know you two have a lot to sort out, but how about you worry about it after we are done here? What you say?” Hayato and Tatsuo were shuddering
“Y…Yes, Haru-sama!” Both of them said in unison
(Somethings never change I guess)
Everyone went back to where they were before and Hayato took the spotlight once again “Back on track, three cipher disks will only give back the gear on one single player….Meaning if we are all to fight with our own gear, we either have to either find 12 disks which is next to impossible, or we have to wait till we are in midgame where we can obtain disks out of drops around the map…. Most practical thing to do is the latter.”
“And finally….” Hayato took a couple of steps towards us with his hands behind his back. “Only the top ten make it through, and to eliminate a squad…They have to be killed. No exceptions”
The air around me started to become uncertain for a moment. “Look, I know we’ve had our reservations about killing others… We’ve done what we’ve done to survive. We just have to think of this as the same….. If we hesitate…”
“Then you die….” I completed his sentence by instinct, as they are words that have been playing in my head over and over for a very long time now
Everyone looked at me for a second, which started to unnerve me slightly
“Right, lecture is over, now we get to the meaty part of…. Sparring”
“Huh?” I rightfully voiced my confusion
“BR isn’t like ranked, it’s a completely different ruleset…. There are no traditional roles, meaning that it’s more keen to real-life warfare than anything. Any weapon is fair game, meaning the people who are more reliant on their trigger finger, are going to have a hard time when someone closes that distance….What better way to hone your skills than a good old 1 on 1?”
“Uh….” I snuck a glance at Haru in my confusion, and she replied with a shrug “This doesn’t include me…right?”
“What’s the matter? Cold feet?” Hayato wore a smirk on his face as he said that, and the next moment, he pulled a wooden sword out of the training menu and pointed it’s end towards me “You were overconfident before you went into Ranked….one way to find out what you got”
“Are you…sure about this?” I asked, for his sake
“How about this, you beat me within a minute, you can train in whatever you want until we finish here. How about that?”
I threw my hands up, still in disbelief…But if that’s what he wants “I guess”
As I got into position, Hayato tossed me a wooden staff, I barely felt it’s weight as I caught it “The most fundamental rule of BR is that you have no control over what weapon you get, you have to learn to adapt on the fly. Let’s see how you fight without your blade”
I glanced at Haru and Tatsuo and they both looked like they knew how this was going to go.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you”
“Oh we did…repeatedly” Haru commented from the back
“First mistake, underestimating your opponent….You never know how they might surprise you”
Hayato rushed at me, his posture was basic, full of openings and very off-balance….I effortlessly avoided his strike, and had my staff lodged between his chest and his weapon which he held tightly with both his hands. One twist and Hayato found himself looking at the ceiling. I had the end of my staff on his chest to pin him to the ground.
“Three seconds…. Congratulations Ishikawa, you lasted three more seconds that I hoped you would”
Hayato got back up “That was fluke…..Again…” He took a stance and rushed again without warning. Not that it would make much of a difference.
I stepped back and angled myself so his forward strike would miss me, allowing me free reign to lock his right arm up with minimal effort.
“Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow….I give, I give” that was even faster if I counted right
“Close quarters is not your thing, Ishikawa… You are much better when you are behind a scope”
“But we can’t afford to take that chance. The moment we are in that BR, we have a one in a hundred chance of getting caught close range or by surprise… What if what happened in the raid happens here?”
He threw the wooden sword up and caught it with his other hand. “All of us have to learn to defend ourselves if someone closes the distance.”
“Am I still included in this?” my question made Hayato turn his head towards me
“Not anymore” And he turned back to the others “We focus on our hand to hand… we might have the basics programmed into our bodies, but we can’t rely on that when everyone has the same knowledge”
Haru raised her hand again “Um…. I do have a taser”
“But you don’t in the early game…best be prepared” Hayato then faced towards me “How about you play around with the spawn table, get used to the loot pools and unique equipment. You have any questions; you know where to find us”
I put my hands up and backed away, allowing Tatsuo, Haru and Hayato to focus on their own skills for once. And with a clear view of their training, I was left to my own devices, with an overwhelming amount of equipment listed on the spawn table’s menu. The only sense of direction I had was the items being mercifully labeled on what can be found on the BR map to begin with. But before I got into figuring out all this equipment, I decided to shake off the rust on my gun skills.
According to Hayato, there’s no telling what gun I’d get when I first drop in ... .so I had to be ready for anything. I spent my time disassembling and reassembling different guns and working on my target acquisition and reloading, but I’d be lying if I said that I was laser focused the whole time. As the flaws in technique and simplicity of the other’s hand to hand techniques kept distracting me.
While I saw it as a benefit to be aware of my friends’ weaknesses so I could support them, it also slowed down my progress slightly. A few sessions of target practice later, I changed pace and browsed the spawn table, going through the overwhelming amount of equipment…. Some were self-explanatory, like zipline launchers, grappling hooks and line ascenders….Others were things I used on a frequent basis…. Recon drones, breaching charges and what not, however some of them were of the sci-fi territory.
(Portable EMPs? Freeze Grenades? Where have you been all my life?)
My personal session hit its biggest distraction however, when it was Tatsuo and Hayato that were on the opposite sides.
“No crying when I pin your ass down” Tatsuo didn’t even hesitate before he started with the taunts
“Only way you are pinning me down is if you sit on me. Like to see you try, Kanamori-kun” and so did Hayato
Their bout started with them trading blows, Hayato being the faster of the two started to take less hits, but whenever he did, he recoiled back a whole lot more than Tatsuo did…. But even all the way from here, I could see it in Hayato’s eyes… That look of determination with a side of fear.
For a moment there, I saw myself in him. Wearing his expertise on his shoulders, afraid that we won’t be able to keep up, and that we’ll end up paying for it with our lives. This is the first time I’ve even seen Hayato persistent on anything….He hides his intentions behind his usual goof act, but the fact that we have as much a chance at surviving this as the other 99 squads was weighing him down.
During their bout, Hayato took a strong hit…But he wasn’t getting off his feet
“Give up, Ishikawa”
Hayato wiped the sweat off his reddened cheek “No chance” and he re-engaged.
Neither of them were exploiting each other’s weaknesses. It was nothing but the basics of brawls between them. Basic attacks, basic grabs and clearly indicating when they are going on the offense and defense
(Guess I got to look out for them)
“Huhhhhhh” As I was completely distracted, it wasn’t much of a guessing game on who snuck up on me without me noticing…..Again. Only this time, she had her cheek on her hand, leaning in on the spawn table
“Ah! How long were you here?”
“So…what do you think?”
I leaned on the spawn table to match her posture “Would be fine for stalling for time or for a basic defense… but they won’t stand a chance against someone who knows how to fight. Guess you guys are in luck you have me around”
We both continued to observe the bout, but didn’t take long for Haru to interject
“You could teach us”
I looked at her “Huh? Teach what?”
“You know, how to hold our own in a fight…..” She looked at Hayato again, who was trying to catch his breath “Who knows, might even calm Hayato-kun’s nerves a bit”
“I don’t think that might be a good idea. I don’t know the first thing about teaching anyone anything”
“You never know unless you try”
(Maybe she has a…)
But as the thought of giving it a try went through my head, I couldn’t stop the flashes of all the torment my own teacher put me through my whole life…I could hear my screams, the feeling of my own blood pooling under my hands touching the cold floor. I never want to be someone like that to anyone.
“I’m sorry, Haru….. But I just can’t”
<
A voice I’ve only heard once before blared itself in my head
“All of you guys hearing this?” I checked with the others, to which everyone responded with a nod of approval
All of a sudden, a new message popped up on our interface
(Ascension Battle Royale participant confirmed, match commencing in ... .20 Hours?)
“Tomorrow morning” Haru voiced my thoughts out loud
“I had to select who was participating… So I set it to us four. Problem is, it doesn’t tell us where to go…..Ishikawa?” Tatsuo looked at the expert of all this
“Probably the Arena….. That’s where used to be able to commence BR games back in the old days”
The fires has been lit, and now we are expected to answer
“20 hours…. We best be ready”
The rest of the day passed with everyone getting as much training in as possible… Making sure our aim was sharp and our wits sharper. The night that followed was equally grueling, I was barely able to get some proper sleep, as all that went through my head was how close I was to ending it all. And counting the different tempos of footsteps I heard outside my door, I was sure that even the others had troubles getting any shut eyes in.
I woke up a few hours before dawn to prepare for the mission.
One thing I learned yesterday was that there were some items that I could take into the BR map. Things like a tactical rig and an empty plate carrier, and a communicator….. My inventory will be empty, and I will not have my weapons at the start. So I readied all the necessary items before I started gearing up.
As we got the message yesterday, all participants were given access to a 3D detailed model of the BR map. And as I had it loaded up on the table, all I can say is that I underestimated how big it could be.
Approximately ten times the size of all of Helios, with a blend of towering skyscrapers, derelict urban areas overtaken by passed-over sandstorms and an abundance of buildings and open roads everywhere. As the model rotated, I took in every possible nook and cranny of it.
It’s been a while since I got binding wraps around me, and it’s proven to be slower and sloppier than usual.
“Can’t sleep?” Haru’s voice asked me from the stairs above and behind me
I glanced at her for a second to confirm her presence “Slept enough, taking some last minute notes”
“What’s that you're doing?” She descended the stairs and asked me
“Solving the burden of being born a woman I guess. Don’t need these getting in the way when all hell breaks loose”
“You don’t have to go that far you know…You just have to take it easy a bit”
“I can’t do that, Haru….not this time. Especially if I’m going to be facing him”
“Your old friends?”
I paused for a moment as she said that “No, not…not him. It’s his uh….bodyguard, if you could call him that…. We ran into him remember…. Outside the bathhouse”
“Ah…. He’s that dangerous?”
I looked down and avoided eye contact with Haru “Actually, he’s like me…only he’s…. insane”
“Care to talk about it?” Haru sat down across from me and I wore my hoodie like an open coat in case someone else wakes up early as well
“Don’t worry, Tatsuo-kun and Hayato-kun are usually pass out like bricks at times like this” she reassured me
“I never told you about who I really am….what I really am”
Haru looked upon with a curious gaze waiting for me to speak
“Back in reality, you know that guns are banned and any country having any sort of nuclear weapon warrants maximum penalty. But the part that many don’t know is that all the superpowers in the world do have one line of defense and offense against each other. For some it might be a weapons manufacturer or someone who deals in chemical warfare, things that are frowned upon by the Psychosis Index. That one line of defense for every one of those countries has someone they can trust, as a mercenary, even an assassin if it needs to be. Those people are called Monarchs”
I lifted by legs up and curled up “And lets just say, me and Roland…are two of those Monarchs”
“So you are saying…”
“Yeah… Daughter of the weapon’s manufacturer turned Japan’s Chief of Defense…. And trained against my will to be the country’s Monarch….Roland Arnett on the other hand, is America’s Monarch…. To be precise, he’s more like my mortal enemy”
“He’s stronger than you?”
“I don’t know….but he’s definitely more dangerous”
“What you mean?”
“Ever since my old man made me torture my friend to death, I’ve hated him with a burning passion, I dedicated myself to getting better just to see him bleed…. But I was never strong enough to beat him. Even when I had no choice to reject his ways,I still tried to….. Roland on the other hand, he has embraced who he is. He sees himself as a superior to everyone around him, and he bows to no one…. Here’s hoping I’d get my hands around Makoto’s neck before Roland does”
I had trailed off into my own world and it was made apparent by Haru’s confused expression
“The point it, I’ve fought countless people, killed as much as well…. but it’s always the ones that accept themselves to be the monsters they are, who are the most dangerous ... .Roland is not only one of them, but he’s also trained to be so much more…. And that is why, if any of you run into him….You just run in the opposite direction, and don’t look back”
“You are scared..” Haru asked me, now looking concerned
I couldn’t find the words to say otherwise, to which Haru reacted by getting up and helping me with my binds.
“It’s okay, no matter what happens or no matter who gets in the way, we’ll always have your back. Never forget that”
After my chest mounds were significantly decreased in size, I managed to gear up the rest on my own. Put on the carrier and the rig, had a couple of hair ties handy in case my hood gets compromised. And as I’d finished…. The other two missing members had woken up…albeit still half asleep.
It was almost time…… to face the end of the beginning.